Distant Shadow
by Fair-Ithil
Summary: I had not known her. Not as I should have known her.... Eowyn the Mother, Eowyn the Legend, but not Eowyn the Woman. In the end, she had remained as much a mystery to me as the names of yore I read from a some great tome of history...


**Disclaimer: **Don't own it.

**A/N: **And now we TRULY come to the end of the _A Tale_ series. This is Morwen's story.

_Revised 10-22-05_

_I should be wearing black_

It was the first thought to enter my mind as I peered into the mirror: '_I should be wearing black'_

It was my mother's funeral and a better daughter would have donned the black gown for mourning rather then some aged creation sewn from fabric dyed too closely to crimson blood. But there was something compelling about it, Theowyn's gown, soft and worn, with the complex embroidery of the Riddermark weakened by time, the sleeves falling well past my wrist, the bodice too tight, the skirts wrinkled and heavy around my legs.

My hands worried over the fabric of the sleeves, which were much larger than those of my own gowns, and for a moment I was stuck by the illogical fear that my mother would walk into the room and demand I remove it at once.

The dress had been her mother's after all, tucked away inside that chest of hers for all the long years of her life. Indeed the only reason I had it now was because my father had given it to me not two days prior.

I ran my hands over the neckline, squared and close to my skin, the golden threading giving beneath my touch.

My mother was dead. I bit my lip and blinked away the tears before they could gather.

_She is gone and I have not but a dress to remember her by…_

I had loved my mother; it had never been a question as surely as she had loved me. But there were times I could not help but recall as I stood in mourning, clad in my grandmother's gown. I had been her first daughter, something new and undiscovered after five years with only a son to raise. I had heard the tales often, in jest from my many uncles (by blood and by family) of the times when my mother had not known what to do with me, and it made my heart ache with some form of sadness that had been dulled by time, for I had harbored it all my life, made me crave something I could not name. It nagged at me, the thought that my mother, beautiful and brave, the woman who I had ever sought to please and be, had found me troublesome. My mother had no favorite among us, I knew this, but as my mind races, it would be blind of my to ignore the understanding that could oft be found between her and Elboron. Indeed, she was always most at ease with him…especially when father was away. _She ever did like the city._

There was always an unspoken truth between the three of them, for as long as I could remember. And while I did not envy my brother for the bond he shared with our parents, I could not stem the regret the bubbled inside me at the idea that she was gone and all possibility was gone with her.

I missed her, and my heart ached with a new longing and I knew that if she were to walk into the room at the moment and curse me to the Void itself, I would cast myself at her feet and weep for one more moment given. I knew with a harsh kind of certainty that I was alone. I had my husband and my sisters and my brother. I still had my father, but my mother was missing and it felt as though some part of me, so deeply engraved that I had never truly spared it thought, had been ripped from me. I knew I would wake every morning and face another day without her. There would be no one to visit in the garden, no one to sing to me in the ever familiar and affection tongue of the Northern people. She had passed now, as we all did in our own time, to the hall of her lords, beyond the circles, where she would know peace unbroken. I told myself this as easily as I told Haleth that fateful morning when the standard of Ithilien was lowered and the peoples of two countries mourned the loss of so valiant a lady.

My mind turns once more and wanders through the years and I saw her once more as she changed, as the grey grew in her hair and the lines creased deeper. I remembered her sorrow, her joy, her silence. I remembered her tucking me inside the warmth of her vast mantle, sharing some pastry with me in the quiet of her great garden. I remember pale hands that seemed forever buried in the rich soil, and grey eyes that were never truly free of some deep sadness. I remembered her passion and her stubbornness. I remembered her love of life and her refusal to admit when the illness took her. I remembered her shallow breathing and fits of coughs and shaking, the black bile that stained her lips and the pain she tired so hard to hide from the world as hobbit and elves and men gathered at her side.

I remembered the collective sigh of relief when she bettered.

The Valar had not abandoned Eowyn Wraith-Slayer.

I remembered her easiness as she slipped into slumber one final time, her children at her bedside, her hand gripped in my father's. I remember the quietness of the room and the realization that came in knowing she had ceased to breathe, in knowing my mother had truly left.

I remembered taking the dress from my father's shaking hands and thinking I had not known her. Not as I should have known her, having never shared her tale with me, having left me to remember Eowyn the Mother, Eowyn the Legend, but not Eowyn the Woman. In the end, she had remained as much a mystery to me as the names of yore I read from a some great tome of history.

I bent my head, casting my eyes away from the mirror and with shaking hands loosen the woven leather belt about my waist, hoping to provide a bit of relief for my growing belly as I do so. _What will I say to them if I did not even know her? _I think as I give a violent tug, my hands clumsy in my despair.

Determined not to cry I looked back into the mirror and busy myself with my hair, brushing and pulling raven locks until they can be managed into the circlet of plaited hair, pinned tightly into place. I try to remember the funeral dirge, my tongue shaping the words even as tears rose in my tired eyes. _I should be wearing black…_

'Morwen,' My father's voice, steady yet weary, called through the door and I knew the hour had come. I would bid my mother farewell.

'I am coming…' I called, preparing myself for what I had do, readied to comfort and take comfort. I prepared myself to face a gathering of noble men who I grew up calling uncle, prepared myself to mourn for those who had already begun the journey my mother set out on.

I looked at myself one last time and see for a flickering moment Eowyn, and Theoywn and Morwen who came before me, who I would tell my own daughter of and meet once more when my time own came.

I opened the door and feel my father's eyes on me, his hand on my shoulder, fingers almost reverent of the aged embroidery. He looked at me and I knew he could see past it and into my very heart.

I looked at him and saw his own haggard expression; he seemed to have aged a life time in the days since my mother's passing. I wished to comfort him and grip his hand with the all the strength that I dare.

'She would have thought it fitting.' he says simply and I weep.

**End**


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